prototyping the user experience

March 18, 2009

How science can help us design better people.

I'm writing this short article as a sketch for a more detailed article to come. The thoughts I'm relating here are still gestating. The area of interest for me has to do with the intersection of design iteration and the scientific method. I have become fascinated with experimentation as a way of living and a way of creating value in business. I know intuitively that if you iterate on a design your design gets better. I am also starting to see the same pattern in business. Business is made up of many parallel and overlapping processes. The more optimized these processes the smoother your operation. The process of refinement is essential to both design and business. How does this refinement come about? In most cases it's a simple process of trying things or experimenting to see what works. This is why I am drawn to try and better understand the scientific method. One can not deny the tremendous effect this method has had on our humanity. What I want to know is how this method relates to the process of creativity? I have just started to look at the work of Gaston Bachelard who was both physicist and a philosopher. I need to take a deeper look at his work but at a high-level there are some compelling interconnections between creativity, science, and morality. It turns out that his thinking on scientific activity illuminates our common understanding of the idea of paradigm shifts. It is interesting how science and morality seem to flow in different streams. What if creativity, experimentation, and dialogue, are the necessary processes for better design, better business, and a better life? Maybe I'm being too optimistic? I don't think designing the right experiments is an easy or trivial thing to do. What I do sense is that keeping things simple is critical.